Archives for February 2009

I'm going to give you a brief update on your host's progress. Since my last photo update in September, you'll certainly be happy to know that I'm chugging along.

It was quite some time ago when I was reading some stuff by Clarence Bass (make sure you see his photo at 70-years-old), where he said, "Lose fat slowly." I'm not even certain of his reasoning, but I tend to defer to guys that old (like Art), so credible in appearance. So, I've never worried about it. I typically drop ten pounds or so, hang out for 2-3 months, up & down, with every weight peak just a bit lower than the last, and then it kicks off again.

You see, with paleo / EvFit / Primal, you just never ought to have a worry. You're are applying sound, logical, 4-million-year-tested principles to your very own life. The source of my passion and what drives this blog: it has been well over a year since I even had a shadow of a doubt that this worked: unequivocally. And I'm not just talking weight; I'm talking fat loss, muscle gain, hugely increased energy, better blood markers: the whole enchilada to employ a bad metaphor. It works, and it works for everyone, every time, across the board.

It's how you were designed to eat. But, you're always welcome to eat inferior.

So, since that last update, at around 190, I went from there to 195, to 187 at the lowest, and bounced back-&-forth continuously, all the time getting stronger and stronger in the gym. I'm really impressed with the amount of muscle I've gained in my legs, and am now up to typically doing 3 sets of 10 inclined leg presses each at about 450, followed by a burn off at around 300, 15-20 reps. Where I could not do a single dead hang pull-up a year ago, I can now do 4-5 before I have to start kipping it up to the bar, then I can do lots more.

So, I hit my lowest weight since around 1994 the other day: 183.

I'm headed to Puerto Vallarta on Saturday. Believe it or not, I plan to lose fat during my vacation. Hunger for me, now, is almost non-existent. You saw that photo melange from the camping trip. I lost weight there, too.

I'll see if I can get out some pics of me en vacanceses. With tan in hand.

Now, when I say “Paleo,” I mean Paleo-like, i.e., not necessarily low in sat-fat. That said, my good friend in Scotland, Chris Highcock, came up with something this morning.

I’d love to tell you what it is, but you’re just going to have to hit that link above to find out.

This is a must read from Keith Norris at Theory to Practice.

Detractors of the Paleo lifestyle are wont to fly the flag of speedy/swift evolution as evidence of the supposed incongruence of the Paleo way vis-à-vis modern man’s interaction within his present-day environment.

I'm not going to give too much away, cause I want you to go read it over there. I'll just add that I blogged on rapid evolution a few weeks back. Finally, the thing about rapid evolution is that we're talking changes over thousands of years vs. tens, hundreds of thousands, and millions.

Two really great food & fitness blogs out there were Modern Forager and The IF Life. I say "were," because as of this last Monday, they are, sadly, no more. I'm sure longtime readers have enjoyed many of my posts highlighting and linking to various posts on those two great sites.

They will be missed.

…But not too much; because Scott Kustes and Mike O'Donnell have teamed up on a new project, done one huge crapload of work by all appearances, and have created The Life Spotlight.

Go have a look.

I'm going to break with standard practice and go ahead and quote the whole thing, here, because there's no single part of that can be excerpted and it's just too important. Here's some resources to check out:

• My original post: Don't Listen To Me!
• Dr. Dwight Lundell's part 1 article: Heart Surgeon Admits Huge Mistake
• Dr. Lundell's book websites: The Great Cholesterol Lie; The Cure for Heart Disease
• Dr. Lundell's interview with Dr. William Davis of the Track Your Plaque program

And now, here's part 2 of Dr. Lundell's heroic article.

Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. Let’s say you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.

Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?

Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.

When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.

What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.

While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.

Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential –they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.

If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation. Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.

There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.

There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation-causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them. One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.

The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.

Mark Sisson just emailed over his answers to your questions. Very good and thorough (naturally). I ought to have an intro worked up, along with editing for form, by 8 a.m. tomorrow.

You'll want to make FTA your first stop.

Update: You Asked; Mark Sisson Answers

New research out on Splenda, one of the popular artificial sweeteners. And Dr. Mercola has done a review of the study.

There’s overwhelming evidence that consuming artificial sweeteners will likely wreak havoc on your body. Previous news has centered mainly around artificial sweeteners’ ability to impair your appetite regulation and leading to weight gain.

For example, it’s been discovered that diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome and, ultimately, heart disease.

However, the study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found even further disturbing news besides weight gain. Splenda:

• reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent
• increases the pH level in your intestines, and
• affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you’re on certain medications

They also found unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims.

I've been mostly "sweetless" for quite a while, now, and don't miss it a bit. The reason for not using them had nothing to do with the foregoing new information, however, but because they will tend to stall your fat loss or even cause you to put on fat even in the midst of an ultra-low-carb diet. As Mercola explains:

The belief that consuming artificially sweetened foods and drinks will help you to lose or maintain weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for diet choices for this reason, please understand that you have been sorely misled.

In reality, these diet foods and drinks can cause serious distortions in your biochemistry and ruin your body's ability to control calories. As a matter of fact, it’s been shown that diet soft drinks can double your risk of obesity!

Nearly a decade ago, studies were already revealing that artificial sweeteners can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar.

That was enough for me to avoid them as much as possible (I've maybe had 2-3 diet sodas in the last year), but with this new information I think I'll just stick to my unsweetened coffee, unsweetened tea (hot & cold), and my most favorite of all: San Pelegrino.

You've really got to love the Internet.

Another thing I love is watching establishment, authoritarian "experts" — who fake a livelihood and self-esteem regurgitating the party line — get it right in the teeth.

That's what happened to these two dumbshits, Jennifer Nelson, M.S., R.D. and Katherine Zeratsky, R.D. in this post ("For those with diabetes — there's more to it than carbs"). I'm not even going to quote any of it because it's just so dumb. 1+1=3 dumb; that's how dumb.

But luckily, as of right now, 31 out of 33 commenters — most of whom are T2 diabetics or successfully treat T2 diabetics — have given the two morons a rash of real nice kicks in the teeth. Here was one of my favorite comments, by Debbie (of the two comments that were not kicks in the teeth, one was a question and another was a comment by the author of the post):

This is the sort of article which helps reinforce the truth of the comment my son frequently makes: "If you want to understand human nutrition *never* ask a dietician or a nutritionist, ask a biochemist". I'm a T2 diabetic and thank God I'm pretty internet-savvy. Thus I know full well that a diet that is 45% carbs is a true "killer" diet for diabetics. Any diabetic who researches the issue knows that a real low carb diet is the best hope for longevity. I try to keep carbs at about 5% of my total caloric intake, sometimes up to 10% but *never* higher than that! Higher would send my blood sugars spiraling out of control. But my numbers are all good. I eat plenty of saturated fats too, since I feel quite sure it is not a demon. Not that I eat fat indiscriminately. I avoid trans fats, and polyunsaturated vegetable fats. But I eat my share of dairy fat, animal fat, coconut oil, and monos like olive oil. My typical diet is 70% fat, 5% carb, 25% protein. It's easy to maintain, makes me feel incredible. So far I've lost 70 pounds, and all my numbers are much better. But I pity the poor diabetic who does not have access to the internet. They are the ones likely to lose their limbs, their eyesight, etc. I used to respect the Mayo Clinic as a dispenser of medical information, but after reading this I realize I can't trust a word written here either!

It gets better. A few days later (Feb 3), they published a follow-up moronic post that essentially said the same stupid things. So far, about 12 of 14 comments are good teeth kicks, while a couple of diabetics are recommending going on a pea brain-diet (vegetarian). I particularly liked this comment by Mary Kolk, who literally saved her husband's life from the dietitians and medical doctors doing their level best to kill him — and those dietitians and medical doctors very nearly succeeded in killing him, by Mary's account.

You have got to be kidding me! You need to read Dr. Richard Bernstein's book, "Diabetes Solutions Third Edition" It is amazing how the medical community refuses to acknowledge tremendus benefits of eating a low carbohydrate diet. My husband is a type 2 diabetic for over 25 years. He had severe neuropathy in both feet and could not walk over 75 to 100 feet at any one time. He was eventually put on insulin after the doctor felt there was nothing more he could do for him. Beginning at 5 units a night, a year later he was on 43 units a night. His weight ballooned to 280 pounds. He was depressed and I told my kids that in 6 months I would be pushing dad around in a wheelchair. About 7 years ago I read Dr. Bernstein's book. I read that book and realized it was all about my husband. Six years ago, my husband accepted responsibility for the diabetes, went on a program of low carb and exercise this was the result: he lost 80 pounds in 9 months, his HA1c fell to 6.5 from 11, he goes to the gym 3 times a week and walks 2 miles each time. He came off of insulin about 3 months after beginning this program and his doctor takes him OFF of meds each time he sees him. He has not had insulin in 6 years! He feels wonderful, he looks wonderful and he is wonderful. He was literally dying in front of my eyes – seeing his doctor faithfully and following what his doctors told him to do. And he was dying slowly. He is now fully alive and well. His HDL is great.

(HT: Doc Eades)

Just mostly food pics, all cooked by friends and family, especially my mom and two brothers. I actually brought food and ended up cooking nothing this time around. You'll soon see why I didn't bother.

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